BOOKS
30x – Stories About Us
30 women. 30 portraits. 30 stories from the age around 30.
The 30x book documents a brief moment in the lives of 30 women in Helsinki. I capture the portraits in one take on black-and-white film. These women write diary-like real stories under different circumstances. The reports reveal the difficult moments that will shape the future of their writers. The project theme is change — the inevitable transformation — and it deals with growth and survival in the welfare society that was supposed to be easy. The 30x project draws a fragmented picture of women's lives — just when the biological clock is ticking a steady pulse, and women have to make lifelong decisions in the blink of an eye. The book contains stories about the joy and sadness of everyday life with a surprising flavor — straightness. The 30x project opens up a view of the difficulty of finding love and the uncertainty of having children. It helps to understand poverty, short-term work, depression, and fear in the welfare state. What is love, and what is lost? How does it feel when you're neither young nor old, but the frames of life aren't entirely clear yet? The 30x project tells about the affairs of thirtysomethings in their voices years before they were spoken out loud in mainstream TV shows in the 2020s. It looks like the generations will change, but many core problems remain the same.
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30x – Stories About Us | 30x – Tarinoita meistä
ISBN 978-952-93-0133-1
Artist's monograph with 30 photographs, 30 stories and several illustrations. 128 pages, edition 500. Written in English and Finnish. Original photos were taken on a large format film camera with Polaroid Type-55 film, only 1-2 frames per person, no re-takes. Printed on a high quality design paper (Lessebo Design Smooth), textile bound, foil printed title. Designed with love <3.
Writers: 30x women, Heidi Gabrielsson, English text editing by Mary Woolley
Concept, photography > design: Heidi Gabrielsson
Published by Sorea Visuals (aka Sorea Creative Studio) 2012
The book publication was kindly supported by Grafia ry
The book was exhibited in the Photobookshow.co.uk in Create Studios, Brighton, UK, in 2012.
Hienohelma ja vanhapoika
A book about old house plants is written with a life-flavored touch. Anu Ranta writes about the history of plants, also mixing it with contemporary and life-like stories. She gives tips how to take care of these precious plants that can survive through many generations. I approach each flower as I was taking a portrait of it, in various homes and places with a timeless feel. ”Where did you even find places so shabby but so cozy?” asked the editor when I was finishing the book. I grinned, because my images just are never too clean. You have to show life in them, right? This is the book that you could share with your grandma while drinking coffee and eating cake — but not to worry, it still has a modern twist. I took photos in 2008-2009: we needed two years round to get everything in bloom. I also designed the book and it won the honorable mention in The Most Beautiful Books Award 2010 in Finland. This edition is sold out.
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Hienohelma ja vanhapoika – Rakkaat huonekasvit
ISBN 978-951-1-23895-9
Nonfiction book, 4-color book printed on uncoated paper, 76 photographs > 4 vintage pictures, 144 pages, 60 flower introduced.
Writer: Anu Ranta
Photography > design: Heidi Gabrielsson
Published by Otava 2010
”There are many ways to be free.
One of them is to transcend reality by imagination, as I try to do.”
— Anaïs Nin —